I should start off by saying that I love the idea of Bruce Springsteen’s “American Beauty.” After buying more than a couple of vinyl releases featuring songs I already owned (including one with a big honking typo), the idea of getting some actual new music seems much more in keeping with the original ethos behind Record Store Day. And it was even exclusive to vinyl for three whole days before showing up on iTunes.
As for the actual songs, though, they’re more of a mixed bag — probably not surprising for a collection of outtakes from an album of outtakes. The EP doesn’t get off to an especially auspicious start with the title track, whose melody works better on the “High Hopes” song where it wound up, “Frankie Fell in Love.” And the vocal features Springsteen at his drawl-iest, to the extent that it’s hard to decipher the lyrics — highways, hemlines, boot heels and blue skies are all involved, and that’s probably all you need to know.
Things get better with “Mary Mary” (two Marys for the price of one!), which has a low-key, “Devils and Dust”-style vibe and some nice imagery about a town torn asunder by a lover’s leaving:†“Now it’s just a misty sidewalk with the rain drifting through, lipstick case and one lonely red shoe.” And “Hurry Up Sundown” — at once the EP’s hardest rocker and also the closest to being a solo track, with Bruce handling everything but drums — is a passable ’60s-style paean to hitting the highway after the workday ends. Compared to “Night” or “Out In The Street” though, the lyrics (“We’ll feel so free, just you and me,” etc.) are just too cookie-cutter to gain any real traction.
The real find on “American Beauty” is the closing track, “Hey Blue Eyes” — rarely has Springsteen so keenly juxtaposed such a lilting, even beautiful melody with such acidic lyrics, to stunning effect. The song, featuring almost the full E Street Band, feels closest to “Secret Garden” — Roy Bittan’s piano and Patti Scialfa’s haunting background vocals interplay wonderfully with Soozie Tyrell’s subtle fiddle for what could be a melancholic love song. But Springsteen’s vocals are as stinging an indictment of Bush-era policies as anything on “Magic,” even evoking images of†Abu Ghraib prison scandal:

In this house there’s just the dust of bones, the basement’s filled with liars